Increasingly individuals and enterprises are electing to communicate with one another over the Internet. Many transactions between parties over the Internet require some form of security to ensure that information is not tampered with or intercepted in some manner. Secure communications may involve encryption and/or use of secure communication protocols or connections, such as Virtual Private Networks (VPN's), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), etc. Wireless communications are also becoming popular. Security with wireless communications may also entail encryption, such as use of a Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol, etc.
Typically, when a message is sent over the Internet from a sender to a receiver, the underlying protocols and network devices generate a path from the sender to the receiver over the Internet. That path is carried or discoverable from the packets that comprise the message, as the message is transmitted over the Internet from the sender's device to the receiver's device.
Thus, there is path processing that takes place on each device identified within the path over the Internet. Moreover, each packet associated with a message reserves space to carry the path information. So, proper delivery of the message requires a certain amount of space and processing on each routing device identified within the path.
In recent years, devices, which connect to the Internet (e.g., phones, personal digital assistants (PDA's), navigation devices, etc.), have been made smaller and smaller and thus more portable and more acceptable to consumers. However, processor, memory, and storage resources are at a premium on such devices. As a result, these devices are not likely to be used as routing devices on the Internet and are generally not capable of such functions, since to do so would necessitate increased processor and memory capabilities to handle packet processing associated with conventional message distribution.
It should also be pointed out that even conventional routing devices can become fully loaded from the volume of traffic that those devices process. A substantial part of this load is associated with maintaining routing tables and processing path information associated with received packets. In fact, a plethora of software techniques and hardware designs have been dedicated to addressing packet routing throughput on the bases of packets carrying path information with the packets and the bases of network topology known and exposed to each routing enabled device.
In addition, conventional packets of information that carry path and party information can create security vulnerabilities for senders and receivers. That is, the mere fact that the particular sender is communicating with a particular receiver over the Internet may be confidential and if discovered could lead to some adverse circumstances for the parties involved.
For example, a central intelligence agency (CIA) agent or detective may be engaging in communications with an informer, such that if the identity of the agent, detective, or the informer is discovered and the fact that they are communicating with one another, then both or one of their lives or the operation may be in danger. If a packet is intercepted and the identity of parties is associated with that packet as a sender and receiver then potentially the relationship can be detected and thus compromised.
The destination of a packet, if discovered, may also present problems for parties engaged in secure communications, since discovery of the destination may allow the destination's Internet Service Provider to be discovered or may permit the eventual discovery of a physical location associated with the recipient. For example, an interceptor may want to more closely monitor a recipient's ISP for the recipient's communications or may want to attempt to track down the recipient and the recipient's device.
Therefore, there is a need for techniques that are capable of distributing messages over a network without carrying information about the parties engaged in the transactions and without carrying path information associated with routing the messages over the network.